Adventures in guitar land.

Coming along, I think

Firstly, I had a look at that Fender in PMT. It’s bloomin’ lovely. However, I do need to play it, plugged in and through some headphones. Firstly so I don’t come across as a complete numpty in a public place with my rather pants skills (or not), and secondly, I can hear so much better through the headphones, all the little nuances and whatnot as I change volume, tone etc. I guess this comes of a lot of midnight and small hours practice with headphones so as not to annoy the neighbours.

Leigh says that I might want to look at a couple of Mexican Strats while I am at it. I can trade in my Epiphone Les Paul and my Epiphone Dove, which are eating their head off and not doing any actual work here, in my office. I rarely play acoustic at the moment and we do have a Takamine with a single cut out, which is easier for my rubbish hands at the fun end of the fret board. I do occasionally play the Les Paul, as I feel sorry for it because Kenn never plays now.

Alone With You, seems to be shaping up nicely. I’ve got the intro sussed, but not quite up to EJ speed. However, by the time he’d recorded that he’d been playing 15 years or so, and I’ve been playing 18 months. Nearly 19 now, so that’s that excuse busted. I love that track. Cliffs of Dover is improving. Definitely improving. I need to get a bit (lot) more hand stretch going on to improve but I have exercises for that, which I do. Both on and off the fret board.

We are all very happy here today. I put a comment on Eric Johnson’s Facebook feed after he posted :

I just said that I had posted this on the Norwich Guitar Academy website to illustrate versatility to our students. I got a like from EJ himself. Warm and fuzzy feeling abounds. Check out the track, available on iTunes but I couldn’t find it on the UK iTunes which is a bit of a downer. It said ‘no go away’ or words to that effect.

Back to the practice then. I’ve critiqued the new blurb on our new homepage, that is being built for the NGA website. The new version will be up soon, even if I have to get in there and push. If I don’t practice, I won’t improve.